Letter from Schaeffer to Megaw on Dikaios's workClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

Continued from scan 23

… all the debris from the floor. The building was thus reconstructed and reused but in the reconstruction several rearrangements were carried out, even the south-building was rearranged subsequently to the conflagration; p.followin 23, following the conflagration and rearrangements on floor V, the level of the street rose considerably; we can attribute the sudden raising of the street level to the accumulation of debris thrown out of the building at the time of the clearance following the conflagration, for the material with which the street level was raised consists of successive layers containing ashes or decomposed plaster; p.89, street system round the building was revised after conflagration; p.98, following the destruction of this part by conflagration not only the dressed blocks but also most of the underlying course of slabs were removed. Following this the whole area was rearranged. Etc.

Dikaios does not say it, but he knows that I observed pıırx before him the same severe catastrophe all over the city so far explored. So it has a general meaning and did indeed deeply affect its life and interrupt certainly for some time its activity.

[handwritten: underline] Nature of the catastrophe of the original building with floor V,

Throughout his report Dikaios distinguishes carefully between the nature of the two major disasters in the city: that near the end of the career, floor I, which he attributes to an earthquake, what is very probably right, that on floor V for which he does not venture an explanation, but for which he attempts to rule out the sismio explanation. A typical passage which demonstrates this curious attempt reads: P.102, "at the time of floor V a severe conflagration damaged the greater part of the compound..., elsewhere the conflagration damaged not only the superstructure, which collapse in a burning state ...; following this disaster the debris was cleared out and the various parts of the compound were reconstructed with considerable alterations. P;103. The building continued in use in this form until the time of floor II when a new catastrophe, this time an earthquake, brought down the superstructure..."

I am sure every reader of his report will ask: why does Dikaios not admit the possibility of the same cause for disaster I (on floor V), where the indications are as favourable to the sismio explanation as they are in the case of disaster II (on floor I)?

Well, is it that Dikaios did not like to refer to any "earthquake" in connection with the original building (floor V) because it did not fit his chronology of it? If so, his duty was to refer to my opinion and to say why he cannot share it. The initiator and discoverer of the site is not content with some polite complīmenta at the beginning of the report by the author he has invited to share his work and its benefits, when elsewhere in the body of the report, at vital points, reference to his work is simply ignored.

Dikaios' recognition of sismio distarbance at Enkomi, as well as Furumark's at Sinda is based on my first discovery of earthquake … continues